ADAM JOHN ROBERTS

This ensemble dance work was inspired by the evolution of computer technology. I wanted to work in abstraction as I often explore with autobiography and identity. I wanted the style of movement to be aesthetic, rhythmical, mechanical and gestural with attention to detail and interact with film projection consisting of excerpts from video games and other archive from the internet.

 

Background Research

 

In the 19th Century, Charles Babbage designed the Difference Engine. The first typewriter was the Hansen Writing Ball that was invented in Denmark dating 1865. IBM was the first big computer company, founded in 1890 by its founders who were also the US government who purchased an electrical machine that handled population data (Jackson, 2014).

 

In the 1950s, Grace Hopper, John Mauchly and John Eckert were pioneers who wrote the compiler computer program titled A-O and UNIVAC 1 – the first commercial computer in the United States of America (Samuels, 2015).

 

Between the 1970-80s, the internet spreads across America and connects to the United Kingdom while Intel 4004 microprofessor unveiled and Ray Tomlinson invented email communications (Isaacson, 2014).

 

Xerox Alto was the first desktop computer with a mouse, keyboard and screen that displayed clickable menus. In 1975, Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded Microsoft and Edward Roberts promoted the Altair 8800 computer (Samuels, 2015).

 

Arcades and video games were emerging in the 1980s followed by the launch of ‘Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle’ – Yahoo! -  and Google before Wikipedia, Facebook, Twitter and iPlayer were set up in the 2000’s. Since 2010, the iPad and other touchscreen tablet computers were launched by Apple and Samsung amongst other manufacturers (Jackson, 2014).

 

Tim Berners-Lee (2014) studied Physics at Oxford University until 1976 before working for CERN - the European Organisation for Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland in 1980. After reading Enquire Within Upon Everything (1856) Berners-Lee wrote a ‘web-like’ program titled ENQUIRE. The very first textual website – http://info.cern.ch – was displayed in the Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) and launched in 1991 before the World Wide Web package became globally available in 1993.

 

It was my choice to direct an all-female cast of dancers because, according to Jackson, a team of female mathematicians operated Harvard computers in 1912 (Jackson, 2014) thus I wanted to see these female mathematicians go on a journey through time and become trapped in video games along the way.

 

The Creative Process

 

A great percentage of the 4th Process – Choreographer as Facilitator, Dancer as Creator – was employed for this project. I offered the dancers freedom and allowance to be creators by devising movement that represented their individual style which was also relevant to the background theme of this dance work whilst being directed when structuring.

 

The creative methodologies in fulfilment of the process were each dancer to devise movement based on three words – ‘aesthetic’, ‘rhythmical’ and ‘mechanical’. I provided a definition and synonyms for each word to inform their creative practice. Another creative task was ‘flocking’. I wanted the leader in front of the clump during the flocking exercise to extend their arm and flex their hand to represent the smartphone device attached to the selfie stick then everyone followed the leader and took turns.

 

In order to devise gesture, I wanted the dancers to familiarise themselves with a print-out of the QWERTY keyboard. Each dancer was given a trimmed paper listing ten different names of computer hackers found on the front cover of Steven Levy’s “Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution” (2010). On the left-hand side of the trimmed paper was the list of these names whereas on the right-hand side were the letters that spell their names however mixed up like a conundrum. I wanted the dancers to imagine they were typing their given hackers’ names on an invisible keyboard of their own whilst travelling through the space. These solo excerpts were not a certain kind of ‘gestural’ as expected. Instead, they were also linear, a cross between the fluid and the intricate, considering the inclusion of arabesques.

 

A certain percentage of the film projection consisted of video games researched in the following source titled An Illustrated History of 151 Video Games by Simon Parkin (2013) who annotated Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda and Tomb Raider amongst others. I wanted the dancers to embody archived excerpts from video games in solos and duets. These were Marble Madness, The Way of the Exploding Fist, Sonic the Hedgehog and Street Fighter.

 

Another excerpt from a video game I wanted my dancers to embody to fulfil a group task was Pac-Man. Designed in 1980, Pac-Man was one of the first iconic video games that invited female game players in arcades and created by Toru Iwatani. Parkin described Pac-Man (as a character) as a pizza with a single slice removed whose warm yellow colouring made him likeable, not merely recognizable. He chased after the remaining characters that were ghosts, also known as four ‘power pills’ in a maze. I wanted each dancer to be a character and find a balance between walking/running in linear pathways with edges as I wanted this sequence to be pedestrian.

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Feedback

 

This was a polished, well-structured quartet with a clear focus. There were three tutorials on a 1-1 basis and two with a third party. In discussion, I shared my ideas regarding costume, creative methodologies, movement style and film projection. The questions posed for consideration were how did these relate to the topic and storytelling? What were the roles of the bodies? What were they doing?

 

My remote ideas regarding costume designs were white full-length leotards with metallic material stitched to the back in the following five colours – red, green, blue, purple and orange – to symbolise the iMac G3 computers built between 1998-2003. Due to its abstract theme, there was no narrative. This film projection mainly consisted of archived excerpts from video games in chronological order of release date. Kinaesthetically, the dancers were embodying the excerpts without being mimetic - this was a small percentage of the other creative methodologies employed throughout the process.

 

Further questions followed concerning the film projection which was formed by three themes in chronological order: 1) the prosecution of Alan Turing, 2) video games and 3) the World Wide Web.

 

The outstanding criticism was the on-screen text. QWERTY Hakkus began with captions detailing the prosecution of Alan Turing, taken from The Imitation Game (2014) starring Benedict Cumberbatch. The captions were as follows:

 

“After a year of government-mandated hormonal therapy, Alan Turing committed suicide on June 7th, 1954. He was 41 years old. Between 1885 and 1967, approximately 45,000 homosexual men were convicted of gross indecency under British Law. In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II granted Turing a posthumous royal pardon, honouring his unprecedented achievements. Historians estimated that breaking enigma shortened the war by more than two years, saving over 14 million lives. It remained a government-held secret for more than 50 years. Turing’s work inspired generations of research into what scientists called “Turing Machines”. Today, we call these computers.”

 

The above text was reminiscent of DV8’s To Be Straight with You (2007). It led the onlooker to think that s/he were to see a piece that will deal with the issue of homosexuality then be slightly confused to face an all-female cast.

 

Did the first theme distract the audience away from my artistic intention? What type of abstraction could I have done for the three themes? Eventually, as a thinking choreographer, I decided I wanted my audience to read and perceive those captions their own individual ways. There were mixed opinions about the film projection that was described as overwhelmingly extraordinary (and extraordinarily overwhelming). I feel it was my artistic intent to overwhelm the onlooker with the film projection as it did.

 

Another slight confusion was seeing “Game Over” halfway through when that could have been saved until the end. Overall, a very well-crafted piece.

 

If I was to develop QWERTY Hakkus, I would explore more behind the typewriter as a tactile stimulus.

 

References

 

Butterworth, J. and Wildschut, L. (2009) Contemporary Choreography: A Critical Reader. Oxon: Routledge

 

Gass, S.I. and Assad, A.A. (2005) An Annotated Timeline of Operations Research: An Informal History. United States of America: Springer

 

Harvey, D. (2014) Tim Berners-Lee. London: Franklin Watts

 

Isaacson, W. (2014) The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution. Great Britain: Simon & Schuster

 

Jackson, T. (2014) Digital Technology. London: Franklin Watts

 

Levy, S. (2010) Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. United States of America: O’Reilly

 

Parkin, S. (2013) An Illustrated History of 151 Video Games. Leicestershire: Lorenz Books

 

Samuels, C. (2015) The Digital Age: 1947-Present Day. London: Franklin Watts

 

The Imitation Game (2014) [film] Directed by Morton Tyldum. UK & USA: Studio Canal (114 minutes)

 

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